6 tips to speed up iPhone 4 or iPhone 4s running iOS 7

Apple has optimised iOS 7 to ensure it runs fine on iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s. iPhone 4s is as capable as the newer iPhone 5 for common usage, but iPhone 4 is certainly showing its age running iOS 7. Here are 6 tips to hopefully help you to speed things up and reduce some lag using iOS 7 on your iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s.

1. Reduce motion effect

iPhone 4 does not support parallax motion effect, but iPhone 4s does. You can speed up iPhone 4s response time when jumping between apps by turning on Reduce Motion.

To turn on Reduce Motion, go to Settings > General > Accessibility. Under Reduce Motion settings, tap the switch to turn on Reduce Motion.

This setting turns off parallax motion effect and disable icon effects and animations.

2. Reduce transparency

Transparency is a signature new feature in iOS 7’s interface overhaul. It projects depth by making background transparent with blurring filters of view beneath. iOS 7.1 added the ability to reduce transparency by rendering pop up views such as Control Center and Notification Center opaque.

Go to Settings > General > Accessibility and tap on the Increase Contrast. Tap the switch to turn on Reduce Transparency.

Here’s the screenshot of Control Centre with Reduce Transparency turn off (left) and turn on (right).

3. Disable background app refresh

Background app refresh is a new feature in iOS 7 to allow apps to perform tasks in the background. Apps can check in the background if there is new content available, download them so that new content is available immediately when you reuse the app. Background tasks can also be triggered by location or push notifications.

Background app refresh is built for great usability and user experience, but is battery draining and CPU consuming especially running on older model iPhone.

5. Reduce keyboard lag

Keyboard lag is a common complaint for users running iOS 7 on iPhone 4. Remove all unused keyboard and reduce the number of keyboard shortcuts. You might want to reset all keyboard dictionary by going to Settings > General > Reset and select Reset Keyboard Dictionary.

6. Upgrade to latest iOS 7

Each new iOS 7 release include overall performance improvement. It is highly suggested to always update to the latest iOS 7 release.